


Homework Vs. Music - Who Wins?

by kattahj



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: African History, Arguing, Friendship, Gen, Homework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattahj/pseuds/kattahj
Summary: Julie wants to do her homework in peace, but Luke wants her to come play music instead. Alex takes issue with Luke's stance, and Reggie doesn't want any part of the argument.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie
Comments: 8
Kudos: 99





	Homework Vs. Music - Who Wins?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @twiceturned for the beta!

Julie typed into her powerpoint slide, _Capital: Timbuktu until 15th century invasion 1. Tuareg tribes, 2_ … What was the name? She had to look it up. _Songhai Empire._

Luke appeared in her room. “Hey, Julie! I’ve got some new riffs. Want to come make them better?”

“I’ve got homework,” she said, trying to find her place on the page she’d been reading.

“You can do that later!”

“I can also listen to your riffs later.”

“Come on! What’s so important?”

“I’m doing a history presentation on the Mali Empire.”

“What’s the Molly Empire?”

“Mali! In West Africa!”

Luke blew a raspberry. “Seriously? You’re blowing off the band for that?”

“I’m not blowing off the band! We don’t have…”

There was a knock on the door, and Reggie stuck his head in. “What’s happening? Are you coming to play?”

“As I was _saying_ ,” Julie said more loudly as Reggie and Alex both entered, “we don’t have a gig until next weekend. This presentation is due on Wednesday. And I’m on a roll - or I was, until you guys showed up.”

Alex nodded and patted Reggie’s shoulder as a sign for them to leave again, but halted when Luke triumphantly said:

“Wednesday is two days from now! You can do it tomorrow!” 

“I am doing it tomorrow,” Julie said patiently. “I’m also doing it today. And I was doing it yesterday. Sometimes it takes _several days_ to get homework done.”

“Well, that seems excessive. Just hand in what you have, wrap it up so it looks like it has an ending.”

“I don’t think Julie needs to take advice from you when it comes to schoolwork,” Alex said, and Luke bristled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe she wants to do more than the bare minimum and actually keep her grades up!”

“Why? You think any record executives are going to care about grades?”

“It wouldn’t hurt her to have a backup plan! What if she wants to go to college someday?”

“Oh, college! What use is that going to be to her? She was born to tour the world!”

As flattering as that statement was, Luke and Alex were now in a full-blown quarrel. Julie wondered if there was any chance at all of getting the boys out so she could continue her work, or if she should just close the computer and call it a day.

Reggie sighed and lay down on her bed with his arms spread wide. Normally, she’d make a comment about boundaries, but he looked so dejected that she didn’t have the heart. Anyway, she doubted that he would even hear her over the others’ voices.

“Not everyone has your neurotic fear of failure!” Luke shouted. “Is that what you want for Julie? Giving herself an ulcer, chasing some scholarship? Never sleeping the night before a test? And for what? You’re just as dead as us dropouts!”

“Hey!” Reggie barked, and the other two fell silent. He sat up on the bed, voice quivering with an undercurrent of rage as he continued, “I didn’t drop out! Okay, I didn’t graduate, but that’s because I died, it wasn’t my fault!”

Luke bit his lip. “I know.”

“It was the one thing my parents asked of me. Stay in school. And I know it didn’t always seem like it, but I worked for that!”

“Yeah, man, you’re right,” Luke said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Alex asked Luke, his voice now quiet and tired, “that we wanted the opportunities you threw away? Trying to get a scholarship was the only way for me to go to a good college. Maybe I wouldn’t even take it, but I wanted the chance. And Reggie wouldn’t even have that.”

“Can you _please_ stop pulling me into your argument?” Reggie said.

“I’m not arguing. I’m just saying, maybe Julie wants the choice.”

“Maybe Julie can speak for herself,” Julie said. She looked from Alex to Luke, who looked a bit ashamed but also still had an annoyed wrinkle between his eyebrows, and then to Reggie, who was shaking slightly after his outburst. They were all so sweet and easy-going most of the time, you forgot about all the things going on underneath, the issues she wasn’t equipped to handle.

At least she could show them her own reasoning. Taking the laptop with her, she sat down next to Reggie on the bed and waved for the other boys to sit down too.

“This isn’t about college,” she said. “It’s not even about how I promised my dad to keep up with my schoolwork, and if I break that promise I’ll have to deal with both his disappointment and tía Victoria’s nagging. I _like_ this assignment! These are some great stories, and I want to share them with my classmates. I wish I had more time to work on it, and more time to tell it! Look!”

She turned the screen in their direction, showing a drawn picture from one of her slides.

“This is Sundiata Keita, the lion of Mali. When he was a young prince, he couldn’t walk, and when his older half-brother took the throne, Sundiata and his mother were bullied out of court. Then the Sosso people invaded, and the king had to flee, but Sundiata, who nobody had counted on as any sort of force to be reckoned with, taught himself how to walk, returned home, and whooped those enemies’ asses. Not only that, but he was such a successful leader that his little kingdom turned into the Mali Empire.”

“Wow,” Reggie breathed.

“In one version of the legend, he had grown so big and strong that no crutch would hold him until they gave him his father’s scepter, and it instantly cured him.”

“That can’t be true!” Alex protested. “Can it?”

Julie shrugged. “Probably not. That’s not the point. The point is, people have been telling stories about this guy for 800 years! He has mattered to people for 800 years, and this is not the point in time when he stops mattering.”

Luke looked thoughtful, humming to himself under his breath. “What did you say his full name was again?”

“Sundiata Keita.”

“Sundiata Keita. That has a nice rhythm to it.” He sang the name, then hummed a few bars further. “Yeah. We could make something of that.”

Julie laughed and shook her head. “When tía Victoria warned me that boys have a one-track mind, I don’t think this was the track she was thinking of.”

“Your teacher won’t mind if you have a bit of music in your presentation, right?”

“No, I’ve had classmates do it before. All right, knock yourself out. Here.” She handed one of the books she had been reading to Luke, who immediately handed it to Alex. “You can use this, and I’ll print the slides I have on him. And while you write your song, I’ll get back to the hundreds of years I’ve got left to summarize.”

“Any more cool guys like this?”

“I’ll let you know once you’re done with the first song,” Julie said with a smirk, printing the pages.

Reggie collected them and leafed through them wide-eyed. “If you had been my history teacher, I might have done better than a D.”

Alex was already immersed in the book Julie had given him, enough that when Luke steered him and Reggie out of the room, he walked through the bed inches from Julie.

“You know,” Alex said as he passed through the door as well, “maybe I should sit in on some college classes. It’s not like anyone would know.”

“Awesome idea,” Luke said. “Start tomorrow, when we’re done with the song.”

That was the last thing Julie heard them say, though their voices were still faintly audible for a little while longer as they continued down the stairs.

She settled down by her desk again and returned to trying to summarize the messier parts of imperial succession in a way that would satisfy her classmates. A smile spread on her lips. At least now, whatever she ended up writing, the band would make sure that her whole class remembered the lion of Mali.


End file.
